


Rewrite these battle lines you've drawn

by wolfsan11



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feels, Grief, Heartbreak, Hints at Pining Keith, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major but also vague spoilers for s3, Pre-Slash, S3 spoilers, Shiro is barely in this I'm sorry you guys, Sick Keith (Voltron), did i mention feels, supportive team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 09:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/pseuds/wolfsan11
Summary: Lotor’s ship is right there,right therewithin his reach but Lance is screaming in his ear, “You’re pulling the team apart Keith!” and Keith thinks‘I’m being pulled apart’.-Shiro is gone and Keith tries to cope. The Black Lion doesn't make it easy for him.





	Rewrite these battle lines you've drawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lionescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionescence/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Очерчивая заново границы фронта](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425700) by [timmy_failure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmy_failure/pseuds/timmy_failure)



> Inspired by Ali's (@Dragonescence on here and twitter, check out her fics because HECK they're so GOOD) musings on Keith piloting the Black Lion. I had an idea in mind for what you see, but it also went a totally different way that I wasn't expecting?? Hope you enjoy it love <3
> 
> I had this sitting in my docs for like, a month, and it had 200 words. I got inspiration to continue it yesterday and then...I just kept going...This was supposed to be 1k lmao.

The flight back is brutal.

“Come on, you can make it, you can do this, you _can_ , jus—just a little more, come _on_ —”

Keith manages to bring his Lion into the hangar with just enough precision to not bang against the inner walls. He sets her down, and the moment clawed feet make contact with the metal, he’s up and running, clapping a hand over his mouth as he stumbles off the walkway.

He crashes to his knees and barely has time to wrench his helmet off before he’s retching on the floor. The meager breakfast he’d had that morning comes up, burning his throat until tears sting his eyes. His stomach roils with each spasm, bringing up bile when there’s nothing solid left.

It takes a while before his body lets up, leaving him curled up and gasping for breath. He wipes at his mouth with a shaky hand and takes a second to gather himself.

Keith makes it to his feet, swaying, limbs trembling and the ache of exhaustion digging into his spine. With a deep breath, he tries to settle the uneasy tumble in his gut, tries to find his center. He’ll have to remember to clean up the mess later, though mostly he just wants to get to bed and not wake up for another twelve hours at least.

Ah. No, he has to get to the Command Deck first.

Resigned, he makes his way out of the hangar slowly, struggling to keep his balance as he heads towards the lift.

The Black Lion watches him leave.

 

* * *

 

There are days that Keith can’t comprehend the fact that Shiro is gone. The enormity of it, that he’d lost him once and gotten him back only to lose him all over again . . . it feels like one giant sick joke designed to shed him of his sanity.

 

* * *

 

When they’re training together, things are as intense as ever but the gaping hole that Shiro left behind is impossible to ignore. He’s not there to ease their way into a new training exercise anymore, or to give them the perfect pep talk that never failed to get them amped up.

He’s not there to support them, to push them to test their limits, to demand nothing but their faith and trust only to return it every time, tenfold.

Keith’s not Shiro and it shows.

Sometimes he feels a little like those children’s games from back on Earth, the ones he’d only seen in cartoons, where the shapes are meant to be fit into their matching places. He’s a block being pushed into a mould not meant for him, but the mould that suits him best has chosen another and there’s no going back.

It’s an uncomfortable fit, but Keith learns to hold his breath. Learns to control his Bayard and his fears, learns to slip on the facade he’s been forced to create to pretend everything is fine. And all the while, he struggles. He misses Shiro, longs for him in a way that makes him lose sight of the long term goal. In the way that invites worry from his teammates and builds in him a loathing for himself, because if he can’t do this, if he can’t—

He has to do better.

Keith’s not Shiro, but he has a job to do. He just wishes Shiro’s Lion would let him do it.

 

* * *

 

Lotor’s ship is right there, _right there_ within his reach but Lance is screaming in his ear, “You’re pulling the team apart Keith!” and Keith thinks _‘I’m being pulled apart’._ He mentally slams down on that thought, frustration twisting in him until it emerges in his voice as a scream. The Black Lion swerves away and Keith sits in the cockpit, the burn in his limbs creeping further up his skin.

He just wants to end this. End this, find Shiro, stop bleeding himself dry in this tiring pursuit just to go back to a Lion that will no longer light up at his touch. Just to escape flying this Lion that leaves bruises under his skin and wrecks his neurons until they’re sparking red-white hot.

But that’s the selfish thing to do and he’s not—he’s _not._ He’s not, he can’t be, and he won’t allow himself to be. Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

Pidge catches him throwing up once, right after a grueling training exercise with the Lions. She hovers over him in worry and Keith can’t bear to look at her when she asks him if he’s alright.

“I’m fine,” he rasps, bile and lies sitting sour on his tongue. Both were becoming a little too familiar. “It’s just vertigo.”

Her eyes are sharp as they flit over his hunched form.

“Vertigo? You?”

Keith shrugs, straightening up and holding back a grunt as his muscles sluggishly realign.

“Yeah. Vertigo and me,” he says, following with a desert-dry chuckle that dies before it even leaves his mouth.

 

* * *

 

He has to remind himself sometimes that this isn’t permanent.

“You’re a tool,” he whispers to himself at 3am in the morning, when the ache in his shoulders wakes him and sleep refuses to fold him back into its blissful arms. “You’re the means to an end, and the end here is Shiro, don’t forget. Just until you find him. You had to bear his death; you can bear this Kogane. You better fucking bear this.”

Nobody endorses the change in Lions. Everyone’s struggling, Keith knows that. So why does it feel like he’s being left behind? Why does he feel like he’s drowning?

He presses his forehead into the bony knobs of his knees, wraps his arms around his legs. Tries not to choke on the liquid emotion filling his lungs, leaving no room for him to breathe.

“Why won’t you work with me? What do you _want_?”

There’s no response. There never is, nowadays.

It feels like every star-lit night he’d spent out on the desert, begging for answers and hearing only the absence of crickets, frightened into silence by his tears. It reminds him of reeling from an absence of a different kind and the salt-scented mystery of a presence he was not expecting, nor wholly interested in.

Only this time, here, tenably in the dead center of space and surrounded by cold constellations that no one knows of, there’s not a single star that can make things seem better.

 

* * *

 

The world is spinning above him, his vision stretched out and warped until he gets the impression he’s looking through a fishbowl. There’s a hand at the nape of his neck and the buzz of angry whispers; inaudible snatches of conversation that he can’t quite grasp onto.

“-fell like a _rock_. I think he’s been pushin-”

“I don’t think that’s it-”

“-for a while now-”

The voices become clear as he tunes back in to reality.

He’s laid out with his head in someone’s lap. The floor is cold, a chill seeping into his lower back from where his shirt has ridden up. He tilts his head back a little and catches sight of Hunk’s chin and the bright white ceiling of the dining hall above that.

“He’s awake!”

“Keith, buddy, you alright?”

Hands pull him up slowly but it doesn’t stop him from groaning and doubling over in agony.

“Whoa, whoa, hey! Steady.”

His face heats at the gentleness in their tone, heart clenching tight. He shrugs off their touch when he’s on his feet again, blinks away the bleariness from his vision. They’re staring at him in concern, Lance with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face, Pidge and Allura watching him as though they could pull out the details of what’s wrong with him in one simple glance.

Coran looks like he already knows.

“You alright, Keith?” Hunk asks from behind him, and Keith doesn’t want to turn around to see whatever expression he’s wearing. The fear in his voice earlier had been enough.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, clenching his fists, spots dancing before his eyes. He vaguely remembers leaving his room after—after the battle. The memory of their latest encounter with Lotor has him swallowing back bitter shame.

They were all catching on; Allura had bonded with Blue and Lance was slowly but surely getting somewhere with Red, so _why was he still like this?_

Lance scoffs, but it’s a weak-willed sound, one made for show.

“Dude, your legs are literally shaking and you’re running a freaking fever. Stop pretending to be so tough, macho man; you should have told us you were sick!”

Keith glares at him, repeats himself slowly to get the message across.

“Well, I’m telling you now, I’m _fine._ I just got dizzy,” he says, and it’s true, he had gotten dizzy, right after the wave of nauseating pain that had assaulted his nerves. But they didn’t need to know that.

He takes a confident step forward to prove it to them—‘ _See, I told you I was fine, you don’t need to worry about me, you’re not supposed to worry about me’—_ except then his foot comes down and his knee is buckling beneath his weight and he’s crumbling to join it.

Allura catches him this time, darting forward fast enough that he doesn’t even see her before she’s there with a firm grip on his upper arm. A whine rises from his throat, involuntary, and she lowers him quickly to the floor.

She considers him with careful eyes and Keith is positive she knows what’s happening.

“The Black Lion is giving you trouble.”

“No,” he protests feebly, but he can’t even lift his gaze from his lap to look her in the eye. “She’s—she’s not giving me—”

“She is,” Allura says, resolute, and it drains every bit of energy from him but leaves behind an ember of burning impatience.

“Yes, okay,” he snaps, gnashing his teeth together. Even that action sends a miserable spike of pain to his brain, like its being stabbed. “Yes, she’s giving me trouble, it feels like I’m physically fighting her every step of the way. So, _what_? What do you want me to do? What _am_ I supposed to do, what choice do I have but to keep going?”

He can’t stand the way they’re looking at him, as though they’re shocked, as if there were ever any path but this. As if Shiro hadn’t asked it of him; as if the universe hasn’t conspired to force him into this role he knows he isn’t fit for.

“Kei—”

“Princess.”

Coran, of all people, interrupts her. He puts a hand to Allura’s shoulder, his face so serious it would almost be comical were it not for the situation. Allura stands and Coran takes her place, crouching beside Keith.

“This isn’t a burden you bear alone, Keith. We all know for a fact that Number O— . . . that Shiro struggled with the Black Lion initially.”

“Yeah, but Shiro got it together eventually, meanwhile I’m just—”

Coran regards him carefully as he says, “It is what it is, when you have a Lion with a broken heart.”

Keith stops breathing for a moment, imagines his lungs emptied of air and rattling in his chest.

“She’s—” he opens his mouth, closes it, chewing on words that he has not yet formed because after losing Shiro, after failing his team, after failing to be the Black Paladin that others expected him to be, this is—

. . . What does he say to this?

Coran’s eyes are sad and Keith cannot look away, wondering just how much more Coran knows of broken hearts and missing men and the pain set aflame by both.

He startles when Lance speaks up, so silent until then that he’d nearly forgotten the other Paladins were there.

“This is nice and all but maybe we should get Keith to the med-wing? Just, maybe? Since he totally collapsed and hit his head, and it’d be just perfect if he got a concussion on top of th—”

Keith grabs Coran’s arm and heaves himself up, leaning on to the older man when the option is offered to him.

“I’m gonna go talk to the Black Lion.”

No one stops him when he leaves.

For once, Keith is glad for it.

 

* * *

 

The Black Lion’s hangar feels like a different plane of existence; detached yet staunchly present all at once. Keith had always liked it, but he’s realizing now it was more for the company he often found here, rather than any attachment to these four walls.

He sits on her paw and leans back, ignores the ache pulsing through the very cells of his body. He sets his head gingerly against the metal of her leg and exhales through his nose, mulling over the words that could fix this. In the end, he has only the same red-tinged instincts to guide him, just like in every other significant moment of his life.

“You know we both have the same goal. For the same reasons. But it’s not gonna work if we’re both just wallowing in our grief.”

A gentle rumble of consciousness thrums through the metal beneath his body.

_He will return. He must._

It’s the first time she’s spoken to him since the day she’d awoken under his touch, his own dismayed plea gone unheeded under the torrent of her guilt.

“Maybe,” Keith concedes, as though it doesn’t chaff at him to believe any less of Shiro. But he’s learnt by now, over and over, that conceding often brings the best results. And that means pushing out words he doesn’t necessarily like.

“Maybe he will. But not before it destroys you. Before it destroys the team and takes everything we’re working for with it. We . . . we can’t let him come back to that.”

She says nothing at first, for the longest minute of Keith’s life. A sweat breaks out over his feverish skin, but Keith focuses instead on the curl of energy he can feel roiling within him, one that softens with every passing second. The harsh edges smoothen out until it’s a gentle prod, reminiscent of the first time he’d met Red.

He can feel it, an invisible touch tracing lightly over his cheek.

_I have hurt you. It was not my intention, cub._

Keith smiles.

“I forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

The next time they fly, there is no battle. Only them and the continuous stretch of void space. Black flies like a comet, a shooting star; she would have drawn every eye towards her, if only there were any civilians to point and stare in awe.

She takes him further out, pushing with a curious tilt towards a destination he has not set. He trusts her though, in the way he imagines Shiro ha—does; the way Keith does Red.

He has no warning when he’s shoved back into his seat with an uptick in their flight speed. Black darts forward, lightning-quick, and he feels her sudden hesitant hope. It morphs rapidly into shock, excitement, _need_. There’s a set of coordinates in her mind but he doesn’t recognise them; he hasn’t memorised every planet and mark on a map like he knows Hunk and Pidge have. Keith can only wait and watch as the blur of space materialises into clarity and Black comes to an abrupt halt.

There’s a ship there, a dark silhouette against a darker background.

It wells in him too then; the hope and the disbelief, the fear of being wrong and feeling himself break. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be Shiro, but that’s what she sees; that’s what she shows him through her millennia old eyes.

“We found him,” he breathes, quietly. He’s not sure what expression he’s making, only aware that the relief he feels is cracking his very chest open.

_He’s returned to us. We must—_

“—get him home,” Keith finishes.

 

* * *

 

Shiro is alive. Shiro is safe. Keith has never cried as hard he does when he pulls the man into his arms.

 

* * *

 

Everything is supposed to be alright, after that.

Nothing is.

“Why?” he rages at her, when the disaster of a battle is over, when his frustrations boil over his skin and refuse to leave without being voiced aloud. “Why didn’t you let him pilot you?”

_I could not._

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asks, and it’s closer to a sob than he wants it to be because he’s tired and hurt and Shiro’s not okay. This thing he feels brewing between them seems all kinds of wrong, and Keith is not a leader, not at all, but he’s being pushed into that same old mould again that he knows will only break him.

 _He has changed,_ Black says, and Keith feels her distress, where before there was only unconditional trust. _He is not how he used to be._

Keith thinks of the moment Shiro had called for him, the moment when he’d entered that hangar. It’s hard to not resent Black for putting that look on Shiro’s face. It’s hard when it feels like the conflict between them began from her refusal to take Shiro back. It’s harder still to confront the fact that the conflict had arisen because of _Keith_.

He throws himself to the ground by her paws and wishes he could block out the impression of her anguish that corresponds to the pain swelling within him.

“Of course he’s changed,” Keith says, and he can’t quite bring himself to snap at her anymore. There are so many things Black knows but there are other things that a 10,000 year old war machine simply cannot be expected to understand—

_What he said hurt you._

—or so he’d thought. Keith inhales sharply, closing his eyes.

“It was my fault,” he mumbles.

_You are both hurting. Something has gone wrong._

It’d be easy. It’d be so easy to brush this off for later, to ignore the thorn that pricks at his side, to leave his demons to rot until he’s ready to face them. But they don’t have that kind of time to spare, and Keith’s sure now that he’ll never be ready unless he puts his foot out first.

“Shiro wasn’t wrong,” he says, reluctant but no less truthful. “I had to take a decision and he held me to that responsibility. My feelings about that don’t matter, in the end. What matters is the team. And besides,” he sighs, “Shiro’s had to deal with having far worse burdens piled on him and he never once complained. So, if we’ve got no choice and he has to be okay with this, with me being leader then . . . well, I’ve got a steep learning curve ahead of me. Can’t disappoint him more than I have already.”

_Keith._

Keith can’t help but smile when Black growls his name at him, reassuring yet exasperated in a way that reminds him of Red. The pang from missing her is somewhat soothed by Black’s presence surrounding him.

“We’ll figure this out, right, girl?” he whispers. He’s asking, because he needs the reassurance. The volley of aftershocks never seems to cease now, pushing him ever closer to an edge he’s not sure he can come back from, and he needs . . . he needs something to ground himself with.

‘ _That used to be Shiro_ ,’ he thinks, and wants to tear his hair out for it. He rolls on to his side to press his palm against Black, heat gathering at that spot like she’s pressing back into his hands in return.

 _I will fight with you, my cub,_ comes the murmur, the oath of fierce devotion washing over Keith. It makes him want to inch away almost as much as he wants to lean in to it.

Things were supposed to go back to normal, once Shiro was back. But now he’s realising that there had never been any normal at all. Just a bunch of kids thrown into a nightmare they can’t escape from without facing it head on.

The turmoil in him could manifest in his Lio—in Shiro’s . . . in Black as well. But he can’t afford to let that happen; people are counting on him to pull himself together. Shiro’s counting on him too, no matter how tense that argument in the battlefield had been. There’re so many things he wants to tell him, and one thing in particular, but the chances for that keep falling further away from his grasp.

Maybe that’s why he can’t help but ask.

“What about Shiro?”

_. . . He is still mine. I refuse to see him fade._

Keith’s eyes fly open and he looks up, see Black’s own eyes glow firefly bright, growing stronger by the second. They’re as inscrutable as ever, but there’s warmth there that most people wouldn’t expect to see from a machine. He huffs a laugh and pushes himself up, the cuts in his heart and his soul slowly healing under the onslaught of something that feels like hope.

“ . . . Yeah. Me too. I guess we’re on the same page then,” he says, and the answering roar in his head is all that’s left to renew a spark in him. He has work to do, he realizes, with his mind clearer than ever. He has to keep trying, keep moving, accept what’s happened to do the necessary, again and again and again until things are alright.

He’ll do it, as many times as it takes, until he can stand firm enough to look Shiro in the face and smile; until he can take Shiro home, have him be safe and tell him it’s finally over.

Keith had promised, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo yeaaaaah. LetKeithGrowIntoHimself2k17
> 
> I also don't want to predict anything about the Shiro situation and tbh I just want him to be okay and actually himself so no clone theories lmao. Just Shiro, traumatised and hurting ;; Until S4 then...


End file.
